Jackie Brown-Cockerham in front of The Willow School, the site of the former Alcée Fortier High School, on August 27, 2025. Brown-Cockerham, who taught at Alcée Fortier High School, was among the thousands of public school employees who were fired in the months following Hurricane Katrina. Credit: (Photo by Christiana Botic/Verite News and CatchLight Local/Report for America)
NEW ORLEANS – When Billie Dolce heard a storm was coming in August 2005, she gathered up the papers she thought she would need for the upcoming school year — learning plans tailored for her special education students at Colton Middle School on St. Claude Avenue, and her classroom attendance rolls.
But she never had a chance to take roll call. Hurricane Katrina and the flooding caused by the failure of the federal levee system devastated the city, shutting down New Orleans schools and scattering students, teachers and their families. Months later, the Orleans Parish School Board fired Dolce and all 7,500 other public school employees, and Dolce never taught again at Colton. The papers she had safeguarded from the hurricane sat among her belongings for the next 20 years, until her husband finally burned them in their backyard this summer…